CN104168122A - Server power supply redundancy method for reducing light-load power consumption of system - Google Patents

Abstract

The invention discloses a server power redundancy method for reducing light-load power consumption of the system. The server system uses two PMbus power supplies for redundant backup. By default, one of them is the main power supply, and the other is the backup power supply. The main power supply is always in WorkOn status; the BMC management unit on the main board monitors the load power consumption of the whole machine in real time through the PMbus bus; sets the power consumption threshold for the BMC to switch the backup power supply to “Standby” or “WorkOn”; according to the detected load power The power consumption value performs the action of "Standby" or "WorkOn" respectively for the backup power supply; when the BMC detects that the sum of the output power consumption of the two modules is less than the power consumption threshold, it will automatically send a command through the PMbus bus to turn off the output of the backup power supply. Make it enter the Standby state; when the BMC detects that the sum of the output power consumption of the two modules is greater than the power consumption threshold, it will automatically turn on the backup power supply to WorkOn, and the two modules will share the load equally.

Description

A Redundant Method of Server Power Supply for Reducing System Light Load Power Consumption

technical field

The invention relates to the fields of servers, storage, cloud computing and big data equipment, in particular to a server power redundancy method for reducing system light-load power consumption.

Background technique

With the development of new technologies such as cloud computing and big data, the reliability requirements for IT equipment such as Server, Storage, and SmartRack are getting higher and higher. Therefore, when these devices are working, they generally use dual power supplies for redundant power supply. The purpose is: when one of the power supplies suddenly breaks down during operation, the other power supply can continue to supply power to the system to avoid accidents caused by insufficient system power supply. closure. The traditional 1+1 power supply redundancy design of the server system does greatly help and improve the reliability of the system. However, the traditional 1+1 power supply redundancy method adopts the design of two power supply modules to share the load equally during work, that is, Each of the two power supplies takes about 50% of the load power consumption. This kind of redundancy method can save power consumption when the system is heavily loaded, but it will increase power consumption when the system is lightly loaded.

With the continuous development of the Internet, the number of servers in the data center computer room is also increasing. Each server saves 2W of power consumption, and 100,000 servers can save 1.7 million kilowatt-hours of electricity. If each server can be in system standby (light-load working state can also save power consumption), the annual electricity cost savings for large data centers is also considerable.

Contents of the invention

The technical problem to be solved by the present invention is to provide a redundant power supply method that can significantly reduce the light-load power consumption of the server system in order to further reduce the power consumption at light load.

The technical scheme adopted in the present invention is:

A server power redundancy method to reduce light-load power consumption of the system. The server system uses two PMbus power supplies for redundant backup. By default, one of them is the main power supply, and the other is the backup power supply. When the main power supply fails, the backup power supply can work normally. , where the main power supply is always in the Work On state, and the BMC management unit on the main board monitors the load power consumption of the whole machine in real time through the PMbus bus; set the BMC to switch the backup power supply to "Standby" or "Work On" The power consumption threshold; according to the detected load power consumption value, the action of "Standby" or "Work On" is performed on the backup power supply respectively; when the BMC detects that the sum of the output power consumption of the two modules is less than the power consumption threshold, it automatically Send a command to turn off the output of the backup power supply, so that it enters the Standby state and works in Cold Redundant mode; when the BMC detects that the sum of the output power consumption of the two modules is greater than the power consumption threshold, it will automatically turn the backup power supply on Work On again, and make it Warm In Redundant mode, the two modules share the load equally.

When the backup power supply is in Standby, it is called Cold Redundant, and when the backup power supply is in Work On state, it is called Warm Redundant. The power redundancy mode can be switched between Cold Redundant and Warm Redundant according to the difference of system load power consumption.

The power consumption threshold for the BMC to perform "Standby" or "Work On" action switching on the backup power supply is generally designed to be two-thirds of the rated power of the power supply.

In this way, the BMC management unit intelligently configures the redundant mode according to the different load conditions of the system, so that it can always work in the optimal conversion efficiency range, thereby effectively reducing the input power consumption of the whole system.

The implementation steps of the method are as follows:

1) The system reserves the positions of two power supply modules for redundant use. The layout of the two modules can be tiled, or stacked up and down, and then powered to the main board through the power backplane;

2) The hardware design on the motherboard meets the control of the two power modules by the BMC chip, and connects the PMbus bus of the power module to the I2C interface of the BMC to realize the mutual communication between the BMC management unit (Master) and the AC power supply (Slaver). The default main module address is 01H, and the backup module address is 02H;

3) For the selection of power supply, test the load power consumption of the whole system when the system is fully configured and running under the maximum pressure, and add 15% of the margin to select the power supply on this basis;

4) Program the core instructions in the BMC unit. After the system is turned on, it first enters the default redundant state. The BMC management unit reads and judges the output power consumption Pout1 and Pout2 of the AC power supply every 60s. If Pout1+ Pout2<=power consumption threshold, BMC sends a Standby command to address 02H, and the backup power supply enters the Cold Redundant state; (Pout: output power)

If Pout1+Pout2>power consumption threshold, BMC will continue to judge whether the current state is Cold Redundant state, if it is Cold Redundant, then send Work On command to 02H power supply, enter Warm Redundant state, if it is Warm redundant, do not adjust, keep Default state.

The beneficial effects of the present invention are: the present invention provides a method that enables the system to change the number of jobs of the 1+1 redundant power supply according to the load power consumption, especially when the system is lightly loaded, it is adjusted to one module to bear the load, and the standby module is in The Standby state can effectively improve the conversion efficiency of a single module and save the power consumption of the power supply itself, and can be extended to any N+N redundant power supply design.

Description of drawings

Figure 1 is a schematic diagram of the 700W power supply efficiency curve;

Fig. 2 is a design block diagram of redundant power supply server system of the present invention;

Fig. 3 is a schematic diagram of hardware implementation of the present invention;

Fig. 4 is a flow chart of switching between Warm Redundant and Cold Redundant in the present invention.

Detailed ways

Below with reference to accompanying drawing, by specific embodiment, the present invention is further described:

A server power redundancy method to reduce light-load power consumption of the system. The server system uses two PMbus power supplies for redundant backup. By default, one of them is the main power supply, and the other is the backup power supply. When the main power supply fails, the backup power supply can work normally. , where the main power supply is always in the Work On state, the BMC management unit on the motherboard can monitor the load power consumption of the whole machine in real time through the PMbus bus, and perform standby or work on the backup power supply according to the detected load power consumption value ( "Standby" or "Work On") actions,

When the backup power supply is in Standby, it is called Cold Redundant, and when the backup power supply is in Work On state, it is called Warm Redundant. The power redundancy mode can be switched between Cold Redundant and Warm Redundant according to the difference of system load power consumption.

The power consumption threshold for the BMC to switch between "Standby" or "Work On" actions for the backup power supply can be designed to be two-thirds of the rated power of the power supply.

For example, if the rated power consumption of the power supply is 700W, the power consumption threshold is designed to be 470W in the BMC software; when the BMC detects that the sum of the output power consumption of the two modules is less than 470W, it will automatically send a command through the PMbus bus to turn off the output of the backup power supply , so that it enters the Standby state and works in Cold Redundant mode; when the BMC detects that the sum of the output power consumption of the two modules is greater than 470W, it will automatically turn the backup power supply Work On again and make it in Warm Redundant mode, and the two modules share the load equally.

The implementation steps of the method are as follows:

1) As shown in Figure 2, the system reserves two power supply modules for redundant use. The layout of the two modules can be tiled, or stacked up and down, and then powered to the main board through the power backplane;

2) The hardware design on the motherboard meets the control of the two power modules by the BMC chip. The implementation method is shown in Figure 3. Connect the PMbus bus of the power module to the I2C interface of the BMC to realize the connection between the BMC management unit (Master) and the AC power supply. (Slaver) mutual communication, the default address of the main module is 01H, and the address of the backup module is 02H;

3) For the selection of power supply, test the load power consumption of the whole system when the system is fully configured and running under the maximum pressure. On this basis, add 15% of the margin to select the power supply. For example, the maximum load of the test system is 600W, You can choose 2 pieces of 700W power supply of a certain model shown in Figure 1 for 1+1 redundancy design;

4) The last step is to program the core instructions in the BMC unit. The program flow diagram is shown in Figure 4. The load power switching threshold is designed to be 470W (two-thirds of the rated power of 700W, rounded up), after the system is turned on First enter the default redundant state, Warm Redundant. The BMC management unit reads and judges the output power consumption Pout1 and Pout2 of the AC power supply every 60s. If Pout1+Pout2<=470W, the BMC sends the Standby command to the 02H address, and the backup power supply enters the Cold Redundant state; if Pout1 +Pout2>470W, then BMC continues to judge whether the current state is Cold Redundant state, if it is Cold Redundant, then send Work On command to 02H power supply, enter Warm Redundant state, if it is Warm redundant, do not make adjustments, keep Default state.

In order to better illustrate the advantages of the present invention, do the following calculations:

As shown in Figure 1, the power module in the industry will achieve the highest conversion efficiency when the load is about 50%. Assume that the maximum power consumption of a server system is about 600W when the system is fully loaded (here 600W corresponds to the output power consumption of the AC power supply, the total power consumption of the system is the input power consumption of the AC power supply), so the two 700W power supplies shown in Figure 1 can be used for 1+1 redundant backup.

(1) When the system load is 140W:

The average load of the traditional redundant method is about 70W each, and the corresponding conversion efficiency is about 83%. Then the AC input power consumption is (70W/83%)*2≈168.7W; if Cold redundant is used, the backup power supply will be turned off at this time, and only the main power module will work, corresponding to a conversion efficiency of about 89.8%. The power consumption is (140W/89.8%)≈155.9W, which can save about 13W power consumption compared with the traditional redundant method;

(2) When the system load is 280W:

The average load of the traditional redundant method is about 140W each, and the corresponding conversion efficiency is about 89.8%. Then the AC input power consumption is (140W/89.8%)*2≈311.8W; if Cold redundant is used, the backup power supply will be turned off at this time, and only the main power module will work, corresponding to a conversion efficiency of about 92.5%. The power consumption is (280W/92.5%)≈302.7W, which can save about 9.1W power consumption compared with the traditional redundant method;

(3) When the system load is 420W:

The average load of the traditional redundant method is about 210W each, and the corresponding conversion efficiency is about 89.8%. Then the AC input power consumption is (210W/92.5%)*2≈454W; if Cold redundant is used, the backup power supply will be turned off at this time, and only the main power module will work, corresponding to a conversion efficiency of about 92.5%, so the AC input power consumption It is (420W/92.5%)≈454W, and the power consumption of the two redundant modes is the same.

Claims (3)

1. a server power supply redundancy approach that reduces system underloading power consumption, server system adopts two blocks of PMbus power supplys to do redundancy backup, acquiescence wherein one be main power source, other one is backup battery, it is characterized in that: main power source is the state in Work On always; BMC administrative unit on mainboard is done real-time monitoring by PMbus bus to complete machine load power consumption; Set BMC backup battery is done to the power consumption threshold value that " Standby " or " Work On " action is switched; According to the load power consumption value detecting, backup battery is done respectively the action of " Standby " or " Work On "; When the output power consumption sum that two modules detected as BMC is less than power consumption threshold value, by PMbus bus, automatically sends order the output of backup battery is turned off, make it enter Standby state; When BMC detects two modules output power consumption sums and is greater than power consumption threshold value, again backup battery Work On, two modules are divided load equally automatically.

2. a kind of server power supply redundancy approach that reduces system underloading power consumption according to claim 1, is characterized in that: the power consumption threshold design that described BMC does respectively " Standby " or " Work On " action switching to backup battery is 2/3rds of power supply rated power.

3. a kind of server power supply redundancy approach that reduces system underloading power consumption according to claim 1 and 2, is characterized in that, described method performing step is as follows:

1), the position of reserved two power modules of system, do redundancy and use;

2), the hardware designs on mainboard meets the control of BMC chip to two power modules, the PMbus bus of power module is connected to the I2C interface of BMC, realize the intercommunication mutually between BMC administrative unit and AC power supplies, acquiescence primary module address 01H, backup module address is 02H;

3), to power type selecting, at system full configuration and run maximum pressure in the situation that, test the load power consumption of whole system, increase on this basis by 15% surplus apolegamy power supply;

4), in BMC unit, carry out the programming of kernel instruction, first system boot enters the redundant state of acquiescence later, BMC administrative unit is done the action of once reading judgement to the output power consumption of AC power supplies at interval of 60s, if the output power consumption sum of two modules is less than or equal to power consumption threshold value, BMC sends the instruction of Standby toward 02H address, backup battery enters Cold Redundant state;

If the output power consumption sum of two modules is greater than power consumption threshold value, BMC continues to judge whether Cold Redundant state of current state, if Cold is Redundant, toward 02H power supply, send the instruction of Work On, enter Warm Redundant state, if Warm is redundant, do not adjust, keep Default state.